Newsday Out of Love?

If a big hole winds up getting blown in Tom Suozzi’s image of himself as a government reformer, it’ll come out of the way he’s run Nassau.

This editorial his sometime admirers at Newsday ran yesterday isn’t a good sign.

Jose Lopez is very skilled at running marathons and enjoys a splendid reputation as a manager of triathalons. He would be a wonderful events manager for the Nassau County Department of Parks. Too bad County Executive Tom Suozzi has nominated Lopez to be the Parks Commissioner. In that job, he seems to be out of his league.

[snip]

Unfortunately, Suozzi thinks that letting deputies run the show is the working model for the parks department. After all, Lopez would replace Doreen Banks, who finally resigned as commissioner after two years of not actually doing the job. In fact, during her first year she was told by Suozzi to turn the department over to her subordinates.

…Unable to fill the commissioner’s job after a year of searching for someone who lives in Nassau, has both management experience and the temperment to soothe a troubled department, and will be satisfied with a $125,000 annual salary, Hahn suggested the marathon organizer, coach and gym teacher. He called it a “thinking outside the box” moment.